As you might have guessed based on the subject of some of my previous posts, I love comic books.

Though I’m almost exclusively a reader of superhero comics of the DC and Marvel variety, ever since I took a class in “Sequential Visual Narrative” in college; I’ve found myself enamored with the story-telling capabilities of the medium.

That class, with it’s impossibly epic instructor, Jim Blevins; was almost 100% responsibility for getting me back into comics.

Pictured: Jim Blevins, on any given Thursday.

While I fancied myself a fledgling pen and paper artist at the time, Blevins taught me how to use some basic techniques and tools that I still use to this day.

Since then, I’ve kept largely to writing most of my story ideas, (of which I have many) though thanks to the artistic confidence/competence I gained from the Sequential Visual Narrative class, I have tried every now and again to make comics of my own.

The problem with making comics, at least for me; comes from managing the workload.

I’m a sketch artist, and a very detail oriented one at that, so when it comes to drawing panels for a comic, each one takes me an ungodly amount of time to manufacture.

In other words:

I think I have it in me to make comics, but I don’t think I could ever do so with any sort of deadline attached.

To date, I have never finished a comic that I set out to make.

Pictured: A cover to an unfinished comic.

That being said, in the world of professional comics, the pencillers, inkers, and writers are rarely ever one in the same.

It’s like the movie industry:

With the notable exception of the indefatigable Robert Rodriguez, nobody makes a movie entirely by themselves.

Though he’s always in the mood for a creative collaboration, I was massively surprised to hear from Mencius that he wanted to make a comic.

The project he had in mind was of the more personal and “indie” variety, much in line with his taste in comics.

While the basic plotline would involve humorous and fairly genuine depictions of ourselves, much of the story would also have a fantastical, hyper-real quality involving exaggerated versions of our desired selves that will likely come across as being somewhat akin to superhero comics.

*Cough!* "Residual Self Image."

While it goes without saying that I was immediately on board for the project, I couldn’t help but feel that this was going to work.

2 creative and motivated friends, with very different artistic and creative styles, working in tandem to write and draw a comic.

While our artistic differences may very well result in the comic book equivalent to a Frankenstein’s monster, (when was the last time you saw characters in 1 panel, drawn by 2 different artists?) I can honestly say that I wouldn’t care.

Working together with friends is fun.

Making comics is a painstaking labor of love.

Put the 2 together, and you have the makings of a project that will drive me nuts and bring me great happiness all at the same time.

It may take awhile to get started on this one, but chances are I’ll start a new website to accommodate the project materials and updates.

Here’s hoping this doesn’t end up like my ill-fated movie project that never so much as reached the pre-production phase…